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PLAN OF ALBANY, 1695. 



1. The fort. 

2. Dutch church. 

:i. Lutheran church. 

4. Its burial place. 

5. Dutch church do. 



a Stadbuis, or City Hall. 

7. Blockhouses. 

fl. Great gun to clear a gulley. 

10. Stockades. 

11. City gates 6 in all. 



MEN AND THINGS 



IN ALBANY TWO CENTURIES AGO. 

/ 
By Joel Munsell. 

[Read before the Albany Institute, April 18, 1876.] 

This diagram of the ancient city of Albany I used when 
speaking of the city a few weeks since, as it existed a 
hundred years ago; but the map belongs to a much earlier 
date. A hundred years ago, in the time of the revolution, 
the stockades had been extended to Hamilton street on the 
south, and the north gate stood a little above Orange 
street. I now propose to take you on a tour about the streets 
within the purlieus of these quaint old walls, for the pur- 
pose of pointing out, by the aid of the map, some inte- 
resting localities as they existed two hundred years ago, and 
to revive a memory of men and things long since departed, 
and whose places are now so differently occupied. 

The original of this profile was made by the Rev. John 
Miller, chaplain of the English grenadiers in New York, 
who was the only Episcopal clergyman in the colony from 
1698 to 1695, when he made drawings of the few military 
defenses then existing within the borders of this state. 
As we know from the present configuration of this portion 
of Albany, the map could not have differed much from the 
actual form of the city within its wooden walls. Pearl 
and Beaver streets are the only thoroughfares which the 
common council has left unchanged in name of all that 
this plan exhibits. It will be seen that the streets have now 
very nearly the same direction as then, and that the present 
curvatures were conformed to the courses which the stock- 
ades gave them. 








o 

Ph 



Men and Things in Albany Thoo Centuries Ago. 7 

The oldest rnnp of the city tliat lias come down to us, 
which is supposed to be about thirty years older than this, 
extends its boundaries no farther west than the upper or 
west line of Pearl street, and extended north and south 
from Steuben to Hudson street. It exhibits these streets 
now known as Broadway, State, and Maiden Lane. The 
figures 1-6, refer to the gates. Brug^ indicates where the 
Rutten kil ,was crossed by a bridge. 

I hardly need to mention perhaps that those stockades 
were composed of pine logs thirteen feet in length, and 
about one foot in diameter, somewhat tapered at the end 
set in the ground, and were dowelied together near the top, 
leaving ten feet above the surface. The lines which they 
formed were changed from time to time, to afford more 
space for the increasing popuhition,and undecayed portions 
of them are sometimes met with in diiro:in2: for the found- 
ations of new buildings. 

"When excavations were made a few years ago for the 
basement of the building on the south-west corner of 
North Pearl and Canal streets, the workmen uncovered a 
row of stumps of a stockade, which ran cornerwise across 
the lot, and a crowd of persons uiiacquainted with these 
ancient defenses was gathered there inquisitive regarding 
the origin of the phenomenon. 

At the period represented by this diagram the north 
gate was at the upper end of Handlaer street, forming the 
barrier at the junction of what is now Broadway, and Steu- 
ben street, and the south gate was at Hudson street. There 
were no cross streets at these extremities, but what they 
termed the roimds jxissage was kept open for the patrol in 
times of threatened attack by the Indians or French. 

What is now South Pearl street was only a narrow ir- 
regular lane leading to the Lutheran church and its burial 
ground adjoining on the south, bounded by the open Rutten 
kil, and all below, beyond the stockades, was called the 
plain. A gate swung across this lane at State street, and 



8 Men and TIdiujs in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 

the liouse that stood od the lower corner is represented to 
have been eUiborately finished compared with most of the 
houses of the] time, being wainscotted and ornamented 
with tiles'and carvings. It is found tl)at this lot, nine rods 
on Jonker street, was patented in 1667 to Cornelis Steen- 
wyck, and that Capt, John Schuyler occupied 55 feet of it in 
1680. In that year what is now Norton street was laid out, 




The Staats House, corner of State and South Pearl streets. 

and was to have been continued to Broadway. The opening 
of this street extended the State street lots across the Ratten 
kil southward which before bounded on that stream. 

Before Pearl street was opened to its present width, the 
corner house, removed for that purpose, was long known 
as Lewis's tavern. In one of these twin houses IV^dame 
Schuyler, the American Lady of Mrs. Grant, resided, dur- 
ing the time her house at the Flats was being rebuilt, and 



Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 9 

in oue of them Gen. Philip Schuyler of the revolution is 
said to have been born. The committee of safety held its 
sessions here also. The street was for many years known 
as Washintgon street. The house now remaining on that 
corner is regarded as the oldest edifice in the city. There 
formerly ran across the front of these two houses, under tlie 
eaves, in iron letters, the words Anno Domini ; and below, 
overthe first story, thefigures, alsoiniron, 1667. When the 
upper house was taken away, the word ANNO was left on 
the house still standing, and remains there now conspicu- 
ously ; and I well remember when the figures were there 
also ; but the owner, who was proud of them for a time, 
conceived the notion that tlie great age of his house tended 
to depreciate its value, and removed them. 

As I am now speaking of matters pertaining to the pre- 
sent century, I may, with propriety, mention that Gov. 
John Tayler lived on the corner of Green street, and that 
after his death his house was removed and a portion of 
the lot taken to widen that street, about 1832. Gov. 
Tayler died in 1829, aged nearly 87. He had filled a largo 
space in tlie political history of the state, and was the first 
president of the State Bank, where his portrait may now 
be seen. 

Green street was early spoken of as the Vodden markt, 
that is, the Rag market, and later us Cheapside. It was 
finally named Greene street, in compliment to Gen. Greene 
of the revolution, and, raising a point in orthography it 
should on that account be written with a final e. Some 
of you will remember when it was a narrow street, merely 
wide enough to allow the passage of a single vehicle ; and 
the city then being thronged with stage coaches — for at 
that period travelers were taken to every point of the com- 
pass by stage, and there being then three famous taverns, 
before they came to be called hotels, and Bement's recess 
there also — it was often so blocked that passage could be 
made but oue way, and that was usually to the south. 
2 



10 31en and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 

There was the old Stone tavern, kept by James Colvin, 
and on the corner of" Beaver was Dunn's coffee house, while 
on the upper corner of Green and Beaver was the City 
tavern, kept by Peter Gerraond, and previously by Hugh 
Denniston, known in colonial times as the King's Arms. 
The ancient sign of this house bore the effigy of King 
George, and one of the early outbursts of patriotism in the 
revolution spent its fury in wresting that obnoxious em- 
blem of royalty from its hangings, and it was burnt in 
State street. 

The mansion of Gov. Tayler, on the lower corner of 
State and Greene streets, is still dimly remembered, a 
broad two story house with a hipped roof, the front door 
divided in the centre into an upper and a lower door, like 
most of the old doors, the stoop provided with a bench on 
each side of the door, where he often sat in pensive con- 
templation after the manner of earl}' times. 

On the opposite corner of Green street, is still standing 
the store of the renowned William James, the merchant 
prince of the time, but less imposing in appearance now 
than when surrounded by one and a half storj^ gable enders, 
and when five-story edifices were unknown. Mr. James 
died in 1832. His conspicuous position among the mer- 
chants of Alban}', and his almost unparalleled prosperity 
in those days of lesser things, can hardly be appreciated 
by the younger portion of merchants. Another magnate 
was James Caldwell, whose residence was the present 
store of Smith & Covert, and his place of business was the 
Gable hall adjoining it. In my recollection portions of 
nearly all the houses from Pearl street to Broadway on 
the south side of State street, were occupied by families, 
and not a few gable enders were among them. Mr. John 
Van Zandt, the ancient cashier of the Bank of Albany, 
who was then nearly ninety years old, told me it was tradi- 
tional that in those days of primitive simplicity and 
honesty, the houses on that side had an area or grass plat 



Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 11 



in front, upon which it was no unusual practice to leave 
clothes out all night to bleach. 

Going back again a hundred years before the times 
mentioned as having tried men's souls, we find ourselves 
in the neighborhood of .the Dutch church. The portion 
of Handelaer street below State was not yet known as 
Court street, nor the upper portion as Market street. Be- 
tween State and Beaver was what was called the Great 
bridge, over the Rutten kil. The Rutten kil had its origin 
in copious springs on the upper side of Lark street, and as 
if out of the pond that once stood there, I perceive has 
arisen the spire of an imposing church edifice. Timbers 
of great length were sometimes ordered by the common 
council to span this creek in making repairs to the bridge. 
It was undoubtedly then a formidable stream, which had 
been populous with beaver and stocked with fish; now 
merely a sewer, with an exuberance of rodents ! 

Adjoining the creek on the 
south side was the residence 
of Pieter Schuyler, the first 
mayor of Albany, son of Phi- 
lip Pietersen Van Schuyler 
(1650), who often wrote his 
name simply Philip Pieter- 
sen, that is, Philip the son of 
Pieter, to distinguish liimself 
from some other Philip, per- 
haps, such being one of the 
mysteries of the ancient 
Dutch nomenclature, chiefly 
useful in our time to puzzle 
the student in antiquarian 
lore. If one has the perse- 
verance to overcome the dif- 
ficulties thus thrown in his 
Portrait of Pieter Schuyler. way, it is suggested whether 

he might not be regarded as entitled to the degree of 




12 Men and Things in Albany Tlvo Centuries Ago. 

LL.D. — Learned in Low Dutch! This Pieter Schuyler, the 
mayor of 1686, is memorable for having accompanied the 
Mohawks to England, in the time of Queen Anne and the 
Spectator, on which occasion his portrait was painted, as 
is supposed by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and is still preserved 
at the Flats among the family relics, by Mr. John Schuyler. 
The accompanying engraving is copied from it. 

State street below Broadway was called Abram Staats's 
alley, because the doctor, the progenitor of the Staatses of 
Beverwyck (1642), occupied the front of the Exchange 
lor, and behind him on the east was the brewery of Vol- 
kert Janse Douw, the first of that name here also (1638). 
The residence of Volkert Janse was on the upper corner 
of State ptreet opposite, which lot has belonged to the family 
nearly 250 years. Probably there is not another instance 
like it in the city, if we except that of Van Rensselaer. 
This alley was afterwards extended in width, and called 
Little State street, and finally widened to its present ex- 
tent, and the term Little dropped. When I see the lower 
part of the street several feet under water, and the owners 
of stores wading about in rubber boots prodigiously elon- 
gated upwards, or paddling about in boats to learn if their 
goods have been lifted above high water mark, I am re- 
minded of the tradition told me by Cornelius Truax, half 
a century ago, that when the Yankees came over and 
began to build below Dean street, the Dutchmen told 
them that if they had seen the river break up they would 
not build there. 

Here we recognize on the map the late Exchange street, 
formerly known as Mark lane, now obliterated to give 
verge and scope to the ambitious designs of the govern- 
ment architect of the new custom house. A street or 
alley ran down between this street and Maiden lane, which 
was long since closed up; and next comes Maiden lane 
itself, spoken of in the records as Rom street — the origin 
of the name can only be conjectured. 



3Ien and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 13 

On the lower corner of Maiden lane and Broadway, 
Harmen Barmense Van Gansevoort, so he wrote his name 
(1660), the progenitor of that name here, purchased the 
lot in 1667 of Paulus Martense Van Benthujsen, the first 
of the Van Benthuysens here, and located a brewery, 
which gave to the lower part of the street the name of 
Brouwefs straat. Here, in a house standing within the 




North Market Street, 1805. 
2 Gansevoort. 4 Huu. 8 Market. 10 James Kane. 11 Church. 

memory of the sexagenarian, was born tlie famous Gen. 
Gansevoort, of the revolution, whose son, just passed 
away, erected a noble edifice to mark the habitation of his 
ancestor, the hero of Fort Stanwix, the present Stanwix 
Hall hotel. 

Other notable citizens of the olden time might be men- 
tioned here, if time and your patience would permit. 

The space between the city wall at Steuben street was 



14 



Men and Things in Albany Tioo Centuries Ago. 



also called the rounds passage, twenty feet wide. In time 
of peace the common council had much difficulty to keep 
the owners of adjoining lots from infringing upon it. 
These defenses were a great tax upon the people, and 
severe orders in council were often issued compelling per- 
sons to haul their quota of logs to repair the stockades 
opposite their premises, and occasionally it is found that 
a woman, somewhat tardy in performing the same service, 
is sternly commanded to " ride" her stockades. 

Outside of the stockades north on the line with Pearl 
street, wivs erected in 1710, by the father of Col. Jacob 
Lansing of the revolution, the house still standing there, 




Pemberton House, 1710. 

and known as the Pemberton house, on the corner of 
Columbia street. This house was so constructed that no 
two adjoining rooms were on the same level, but on step- 
ping out of one room into another it was necessary to 
ascend or descend two or three steps to the next. The 
ceilings were not lath-and-plastered, but the beams and 
sleepers were polished and waxed, and the jambs of the 
fire places were^faced with porcelain, ornamented with 



Men and Things in Albany Two Cer.iaries Ago. 15 

scripture scenes. The same peculiarity may be seen in the 
construction of the floors of the Staats house, now the cor- 
ner of State and South Pearl streets. 

For a long time the north gate was at Steuben street, 
defended by a block-house, on which cannon were mounted. 
There were matters of some interest beyond it, but we 
can merel}^ stop to mention the great fire of 1797, which 
rendered one hundred and fifty families houseless, from 
Steuben street northward — the second great tire of the 
city. 

In returning to State street, we pass the residence of 
Dr. Samuel Stringer, of the revolution, still remaining in 




North Maiiket Street, West Side, 1825. 

17 Barent Bleeker. 18 John H. Wendell. 19 Dr. Stringer. 23 Sanders Lansing. 
23 Chancellor Lansing:. 



the block on the west side of Broadway below Steuben, 
but somewhat disguised by modern changes. This was 
the first house in which white marble was used for sills 
and caps for windows. Adjoining his ofifice on the south, 
dwelt Gen. John H. Wendell, of the revolution. These 
two veterans adhered to the costume of the olden time till 
their decease, the latter being the last of the cocked hats, 
in 1832. This part of Handelaer street, that is, Merchant's 
or Trader's street, came to be called Market street about 



16 Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 

1790, when a market-house was built in the ceotre of it 
below Maiden lane, Noticing trifles as we proceed, I will 
mention that this market was removed to a vacant lot 
behind the old Lutheran church, now forming the corner 
of Howard and William streets, where it was long famous 
as Cassidy's and Friedenreich's market, but more signifi- 
cantly termed the Fly market, and still stands there, in 
the guise of an oyster shop and a sample room — an insti- 
tution unknown to the ouders under that name. 

We have now returned to one of the most notable locali- 
ties of this notable city — the Dutch church. But before 
entering its venerable porch, allow me to speak of its pre- 
decessor, the first church of the colonists, built, we are 
told, in the pine grove, somewhere in the neighborhood 
of the present steam boat landing, in 1644. Being the first 
church edifice erected in this region, it serves to mark 
the progress of church architecture to mention that it was 
provided with pews for the magistrates and deacons, and 
nine benches for the congregation, at an expense of about 
$88. Here Megiipolensis was engaged in his ministrations 
when, in 1648, the grim Peter Stuyvesant came up from 
Manhattan, and took possession of Fort Orange and all 
that eligible ground, and four years later forced the inhabit- 
ants that had settled around it to remove, and give scope 
to the guns placed there to defend it. He also seized a 
strip of the patroon's manor, one mile wide and fourteen 
miles long, in the name of their high mightinesses, the 
states general of Holland. This gives Albany its singular 
appearance on the map, which so many have remarked 
without being able to account for. It gave the govern- 
ment a military road through the patroon's manor into 
the vast country beyond. 

The people being forced away from Fort Orange, began 
more actively to build on the higher ground at the corners 
of State street and Broadway, and the new cluster of habi- 
tations was called Beverwyck. The patroon had already 



Men and Thim/s in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 17 

planted his colony farther north, and his tenants stretched 
along the territory extending from Stuyvesant's city line 
northward, known as the Colonie, the nucleus of Rens- 
selaerswyck. Speaking of the city line gives occasion to 
mention that when Gov. Stuyvesant took possession of the 
territory which afterwards comprised the city of Albany, 
he planted a cannon at Fort Orange and tiring a hall north 
it struck the ground at Quackenbush street, and the ball 
sent south spent its force at Gansevoort street; and the 
territory within that space, about one mile in distance, 
was made the bounds of the future city, and the lines run 
at right angles with the shore of the river at this point, gave 
a northwesterly direction to the tract so taken for public 
use ; and the English governor, Dongan, in 1685, exacted 
this concession from the patroon before granting him a 
patent for the manor. 

These different villages or settlements led to misunder 
standing, the whole region being often designated as Fort 
Orange, whereas the fort was the government seat, located 
on the exact ground now occupied by the Susquehanna rail 
road office. Beverwyck was a distinct hamlet or village, 
and so called until the Enghsh took possession of the 
country in 1664, when its name was changed to Albany. 
But the Dutch recovered their territory in 1673, when for 
about a year it was known as Willemstadt. 

After the church was removed from Fort Orange, the 
foot of State street was chosen for its location, where it 
was built and occupied in 1656, It was a small wooden 
structure, which remained in use about sixty years. The 
circumstances leading to its successor in 1715 are some- 
what curious and interesting. The occupancy of the 
country by the English, according to the usual course of 
things, attracted the immigration of another nationality, 
officers of the government and adventurers of all pursuits, 
who in course of time proceeded to organize a church dif- 
ferent from the established one of the Dutch Reformed, 
3 



18 Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 

whose services were conducted in a language unintelligible 
to the new comers, and they determined to build a house 
of worship. Taking no counsel of the Dutch, they fixed 
upon a site at the head of State street, under the guns of 
the fort, opposite Chapel street, and applied to Gov. Hunter 
for the ground. He gave permission to take sixty by ninety 
feet, and supplied all the stone and lime for the building. 
The common council regarded this proceeding as an un- 
warrantable infringement of their rights, claiming that the 
charter conferred the title to the ground upon them, and 
ofi^erinff the Eno-lish an elis^ible site for their church else- 
where, forbade its location in the street. The governor 
and rector being inexorable to all remonstrances, and the 
crisis being imminent, thej^ sent an express to New York 
in a canoe for the advice of two eminent counsel. Mean- 
while the workmen disregarding the injunction of the 
council, two masons were imprisoned for contern[)t ; but 
they were admitted to bail or liberated by the governor 
and the work went on to completion. It was a stone edi- 
fice forty-two by fifty-eight feet, without a tower, and was 
opened for service in 1716. 

The Dutch Reformed, finding themselves unable to shape 
the business to their liking, set ab ut a much wiser enter- 
prise. They began the erection of a new church of stone, 
on an enlarged scale, and pursued the work with a zeal 
and alacrity which has ever since been a subject of admira- 
tion to their posterity. The foundations were laid around 
the old church, and the walls carried up and enclosed 
before the old one was taken down, and carried out through 
the doors and windows, so that the customary services were 
interrupted only three Sundays, and they occupied it before 
the English had completed theirs. It stood in use until 
1805, a period of 90 years, and it is recorded in a Dutch 
Bible now in the possession of Dr. Thomas Hun, that a 
child baptized in the church on the first Sunday it was so 
used, was EHzabeth Viuhagen, and that the church bell 



Men and Things in Albany Two Centunes Ago. 19 

was tolled for the last time at her burial, she having died 
in her 92d year. 




The Dutcli Church of 1715-1806. 

The street was now occupied by tbis churcb at its foot, 
by a market house below Pearl street, and by the Episco- 
pal church at its upper extremity ; while the battlements 
of the fort stood upon a lofty eminence overlooking 
the city, and stretching nearly across the entire width of 
the present street on the west line of Lodge street, the road 
to Schenectady winding around its angles. 

We are now prepared to enter the church and inspect its 
interior. The porch was on the south side, and the an- 
cient stepping stone was retained in its original position 
half a century after the church was removed, serving to 
point out the precise spot of the entrance to the vestibule, 
the wear of the footsteps of several generations in passing 



20 Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 



to their devotions having given it a peculiar conformation. 
Tenants of the opposite buildings watched it for many years 
with pious care when the pavement was being repaired ; 
but when they had passed away, some one lacking know- 
ledge insisted that it was wrongly placed and induced the 
paver to remove it to the centre of the street, after which 
it was thrown out altogether and lost to the antiquary. 
The church stood so nearly across the street, that only a 
cart-way remained on either side. In length it extended 
east and west. 

On entaring the audience room, the })ulpit was observed 
on the north side, octagonal in form, barely large enough 

for one to speak in, having a 
bracket in front on which was 
placed an hour-glass to measure 
the length of the pastor's dis- 
course. It served the two edifices 
a hundred and fifty years, and is 
still preserved. The seats were 
slips after the manner of modei-n 
cliurches, but instead of sitting in families, each sitter had 
an appropriate seat and cushion, which seat was occupied 
durine; life, and afterward transferred to the nearest of 
kin, on payment by the latter of a fee for the transfer. 
The seats accommodated 611 women, who occupied the 
entire body pews of the church, and there was an elevated 
bench extending around the wall, which aflbrded seats for 
seventy-nine men. This was the entire capacity of the 
church until galleries were added at a later day. 

It is traditional that when there was danger of invasion, 
the men sat with their guns by their sides, wearing their 
hats and mufts, and smoking their pipes during the sermon. 
The walls were perforated near the top, with loop holes 
for tlie use of musketry. To this vigilance the inhabitants 
owed their immunity from invasion, for the city was never 
beleaguered by any foe. 




Men and Things in A Ihany Tioo Centuries Ar/o. 21 

I have a plan of the interior of the church, the ground 
floor taken from a pen drawing of the slips, which had 
been promised to me for several years by Mr. Samuel 
Prayn, and which he left with me, providentially, as we 
are accustomed to say of the smallest events, only two 
days before he died, or we would now have no clue to the 
form of the interior. It is seen from this that the bell was 
rung in the middle aisle, and that the stoves were placed 
on a level with the galleries, supported on posts, and that 
the smoke pipes went out through the wall. The last of 
the sextons in this church was Cornelis Van Schaick. 
Having finished ringing the bell he tied the bell rope around 
the post, placed in tiie aisle for the purpose, and went up 
into the galleries to inspect his fires. He clambered over 
the front of the galleries, and, having filled the stove with 
wood, closed the door with such unconscious force as to 
produce a tremendous bang. 

The fronts of the galleries were studded with nails, upon 
which the occupants of the seats hung their hats, as is seeji 
in one of Hogarth's pictures, so that the manner and 
custom was not peculiar to this locality ; but it presented 
a novelty to the stranger which was rendered the more 
picturesque and attractive by the variety of their style, 
color and condition. The roof was ceiled upon the rafters 
with boards, from the walls to the cupola, and a chandelier 
supplied with candles was suspended in the centre. The 
windows were in the style of what is now termed French, 
that is in two frames opening laterally on hinges ; and were 
composed of smaller compartments or sashes, containing 
twelve panes each, representing the name and family arms 
of the person at whose expense it was placed there — the 
glass stained by a process said to be lost. The panes were 
about five inches square, and so little care was taken of 
these family escutcheons when the church was removed in 
1806, that but four of them are known to have come down 
to our time entire. I have a portion of one of these sashes 



22 Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 

bearing the name Herbertsen, 1657, the pane showing the 
crest having been given away before it came into ray hands. 




Church Window, 1656. 



The accompanying engraving of the window of Philip 
Schuyler, shjws the style of all of them, except that it 
omits the division marks into 12 panes. 

Of the very few relics of the old church that were pre- 
served, was a pole with the bag attached to it, that had 
been used for many years in taking the collections. Those 



Men and Things in Albawj Two Centuries Ago. 23 

collections were gathered ostensibly for the poor, for the 
only poor house was owned and maintained by the church. 

I can't refrain from giving an instance of the expense 
of burying a church pauper. On the 15th of February, 
1700, Ryseck, widow of Gerrit Swart, the last survivor of 
the church poor at that date, died and was buried on the 
17th, the expenses of which are copied from the deacon's 
book. It is entered in Dutch, but I think you will be 
content with English : Three dry boards for the coffin, 7 
guilders 10 stuivers ; | lb. nails, Ig. lOs. ; making the 
coffin, 24(/. ; cartage, lOs. ; a half vat and an anker of good 
beer^ 27^.; one gallon of rum, 21(/. ; 6 gall. Madeira for 
women and men, 84^.; sugar and spices, ^g. ; 150 sugar 
cakes, 15^. ; tobacco and pipes, 4^. 10s. ; digging the grave, 
30^. ; use of the pall, 12^. ; inviting to the funeral, 12^. ; 
Mary Lookermans was paid Qg. for assistance at the burial, 
and Marritje Lieverse for nursing 39^. Total 289^., or 
$115.60. The expenses of maintaining this person four 
years had been 2,229 guilders 10 stuyvers. 

It was an important duty of the deacons to collect and 
disburse this poor fund, the accumulations of which at one 
time amounted to nearly fifteen thousand guilders. As 
early as 1647, three years after it was organized, the church 
was rich enough to loan money to the patroon, and the 
earliest record that remains in its- archives is an item of a 
loan to a woman upon a pawn of silver ware. It was the 
province of the young deacons, as they were called, that 
is, of the two last elected to the office, to take up the col- 
lections. The custom was for the domine to halt in the 
midst of his sermon, when the deacons presented them- 
selves before the pulpit, facing the audience, with each 
his staff having the bag and bell attached, which they 
brought to a perpendicular position against their shoulders 



' An anker was 10 oullons, and a half vat about 11 gallons. Good beer 
was strong beer, ale. A truildcr was nearly 40cts. and a stuyver was 
nearly Sets. 



24 Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 

in militarystyle, whereupon the pastor pronounced a bless- 
ing upon the collection about to be taken. These poles 
enabled them to pass the bag attached to it before every 
J erson in the slip, and if from any cause one was drowsy 
or otherwise inattentive, the tinkle of the bell gave notice of 
the required duty ; then the bag was passed expertly over 
the heads in that slip and drawn leisurely back before the 
eyes of the occupants of the next one. The audience 
being thus thoroughly gleaned, and the domine having re- 
covered his breath, he resumed the broken tbread of his 
discourse. ^ The practice of taking collections during the 
sermon was discontinued in 1795, in the time of Domine 
Bassett. In those days of staid devotion, the capacity of 
church goers for theology must have been much greater 
than at present, for it is matter of record that discourses 
w^ere sometimes dispensed in an almost uninterrupted cur- 
rent for the space of two hours. Now some of us tire after 
forty minutes discourse; as if corroborating the theory of 
Buflbn promulgated in the last century, that men and 
animals would deteriorate in this country ! 

In the first century of the colony, and some time later 
even, the currency of the country was principally wampum 
or sewan, the manufacture of the Indians from shells in 
the form of beads. The form of the receptacle of these 
collections concealed the amount of the gift, so that the 
munificent were not incited by ostentation, nor the needy 
to deposit their scanty pittance with diffidence. The col- 
lection so taken, however, was not unfrequently plenti- 
fully mixed with a variety of coin unrecognized by the 
statute, consisting of any substance that fell into the bag 
with a chinking sound. The deacons, to rid themselves 
of this class of contributors, procured open plates ; and al- 
though some of the sturdy mynheers resented the in- 
novation by turning their backs and refusing their 
contributions, the open plates finally carried the day, and 
the gleanings eleemosynary ceased to be mingled with 



Men and Thinqs in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 25 

base coin. A sad fatality awaited the last relic of the old 
collection implements. An ofBcer of the church, having 
only a practical appreciation for relics, cut the rod in two, 
and acquired a portion of it for a walking stick ! 

Bodies were allowed to be buried under the church in 
consideration of the payment of a sum for the privilege. 
There was at first a grave-yard in the street, adjoining 
the church on the west, and when the lot on which the 
Middle Dutch church now stands was appropriated for a . 
cemetery, the bodies under the church were not all re- 
moved, it may be inferred, for in digging a trench on the 
north side of State street last year, it perforated the old 
foundation still remaining there, and human bones were 
thrown out. The dead were borne on the shoulders of 
men from the church to the cemetery on Beaver street. 
Although a trite subject to many of you, I will venture to 
mention that in process of time this ground on Beaver 
street was completelj- buried over, when a foot of sand 
was added to the surface, and a new tier of cofiins placed 
upon the first, each coffin required to be square, and to be 
placed against the previous one. The ancient denizens 
of the city still repose therein three layers, and I wish 
every one of their descendants could be thoroughly im- 
bued with a filial sentiment of the impropriety, to say the 
least, of ever parting with that ground ; but that the church 
edifice now standing upon it might be preserved as a 
monument to the venerated dead beneath. The bones of 
Anneke Janse being supposed to rest there, and so great 
a multitude claiming descent from her, and large expecta- 
tions from her estate being so general, what adverse influ- 
ence might arise from a mercenary alienation of those 
bones, should give us pause ! 

Leaving this theme, we pass on to the place of the resi- 
dence of the famous Anneke Jans or in the pronunciation 
of the vernacular, Onneke Yonse, which was the corner of 
State and James streets, the present site of the Mechanics 
4 



20 Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 

and Farmers' Bank. As is now well known, through the 
industry of Dr. O'Callaghan, she came to Albany in 1630, 
with her husband Roeloft' Jansen van Maesterlandt — that 
is, Ralph the son of John from Maesterland — for mauj' of 
these settlers had no surnames, but were known as being 
the sons of their fathers, or took the name of the trade they 
followed, or the place of their nativity in Holland, Roeloff 
Jansen died in New York in 1637, and his widow married 
Dom. Bogardus. He was lost at sea in 1647, and she re- 
turned tQ Albany, where she died in 1663. The ISTew 
York bouwery, owned by her iirst husband, was on the 
west side of Broadway, extending along the river from 
Chambers to Canal street, with a strip running up to give 
an entrance from Broadway. Although this farm was sold 
to the government by her heirs, and payment made to them 
therefor, and afterwards formed a portion of what was 
known as the King's farm, and subsequently donated by 
the government to Trinity church, a large number of per- 
sons are still entertaining a hope of deriving an inheritance 
from a partition of the premises. 

In the last century, when the Indian tribes came to the 
city to receive presents or pensions from the government, 
they were gathered in front of the block on the north side 
of State street, between James and Broadway, and seated 
along the curbstone, where a division was made among 
them per capita, men, women and children receiving alike. 

That square was entirely burnt over in 1793 — the largest 
conflagration known to have occurred down to that time — 
after which, about 1801, the Tontine, a grand hotel for the 
time, was built near the centre of the block, fronting on 
State street, a p»art of which remains in the stores of the 
late Abram Koonz and Durkee & Jenkins, topped out 
with two additional stories. There were no five story houses 
in the beginning of this century, perhaps none of four 
stories, unless we count some elevated gables. 

The narrow space known as Middle alley was opened to 



Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 



27 



its present width by curtailing the lots on the west side, 
and it was called James street. Frans Jansc Pruyn, the 
first of the name here, is supposed to have located on the 
corner of Maiden lane as early as 1665, and his descendants 
occupied the premises until 1865, two hundred years, when 
it passed to other hands, the last occupants of the premises 
of that name having deceased without posterity. 

The first occupant of the Hope Bank corner was Evert 
Janse Wendell (1663-1704) the ancestor of a numerous 
posterity ; and on the corner above, Gerrit Wynantse located, 
the progenitor of the Vanderpoels. The old Lydius house. 




North Pearl, from State Street. 
Elm Tree Corner. 3 Vanderlieyden House. 6 Lydius Plouse. 

which stood here till 1833, was taken down by Mr. George 
Dexter, who now owns the premises, and who thinks it 
was built by Dom. Schacts, and that all the material, bricks 
and timber, were brought from Holland. But as Dom. 



28 



Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 



Schacts was here from 1652 to 1683 as a preacher, when 
he was saccecded bj- Dom. Dellius, uiid died in 1694 ; and 
that in 1664 the lot was patented to Jan Thomasse, after 
which it was transferred successively to Cornelius Steen- 
wyck, and Jochim Staats and Jacob Tysse Vanderheyden, 
all in the tirno of Domine Schaets, it is inferred tliat it 
must have been Domine Dellius or his successor, Domine 
Lydius (1700-1709), instead of Schaets, who had the house 
that stood there; wliich latter is the more plausible from 
the fact that his grandson, Balthasar Lydius, occupied the 
house and died there in 1815. The records are often quite 
fatal to the most fondly cherished traditions. Yet this was 
one of those quaint Dutch edifices so common half a cen- 
tury ago, when Pearl street, as well as the other streets of 
Albany, abounded in gable enders, surmounted by iron 
horses in the attitude of doing a mile in 2:40, and also by 
other devices, mindful in all seasons of the true course of 
the wind ; and by various other ornamental conceits in 




Vanderheyden House. 



iron, designed to strike the beholder with awe and admi- 
ration. The Vanderheyden house especially, which occu- 



Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 29 



pied the site of the Perry block, had a weird fame, and 
its fantastic iron linicals were so attractive to Washington 
Irving that he procured them when it was demolished to 
decorate Sunny-side. 

Passing to the ehu tree corner, we have the site of the 
residence in the middle of the last century of Philip Living- 
ston, one of the signers (with whom the elm tree is sup- 
posed to be coeval) ; afterwards of the famous publishing- 
house of Wobsters & Skinners, and now of Tweddle Hall. 
Adjoining it on the west is the mansion still standing 
erected by the younger brother of the Patroon, Philip S. 
Van Rensselaer, seventeen years mayor of the citj' — now 
occupied by Erastus Corning. On 
the opposite side of State street, 
adjoining the property of the late 
Erastus Corning on the west, was the 
residence of Robert Yates, one of the 
first justices of the Supreme Court of '-J^ 
the slate, and in 1790 chief justice. 
He was one of the members of the 
convention that framed the constitu- Yates House. 

tion of the state, and also of the United States, and is 
cliaracterized as a man of great intellectual powers. The 
site of this house is now occupied by the residence of 
I'liilip Wendell. 

This serves very nearly to complete the circuit of the 
city, as far as we have time to observe and comment upon 
it, seldom containing witliin its wooden walls 3,000 in- 
habitants, nearly a tliird of wliom were soldiers and blacks. 
It is found that the population in 1689 was 2,016. In 
1697 the census ordered by Gov. Fletcher enumerated but 
1449, showing a diminution of 567, of which 16 had been 
taken prisoners, 84 killed by the enemy, 39 deceased, and 
419 had removed to places of greater safety. On the con- 
clusion of the war between England and France the popu- 
lation rapidly increased for nearly half a century. 




30 3Ien and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 




The Indians who came to dispose of their fui-s were lodged 
ill Indian houses outside of the stockades, not being allowed 
to remain over night within the gates, so watchful were 
the authorities against surprise at all times. 

The Stadhuis, or City Hall, on the corner of Broadway 
and Hudson streets, served for the courts, the meetings of 

the common council, and for 
the confinement of criminals. 
In the time of the revolution 
disaffected persons and all 
sorts of desperate characters 
were confined herein unusual 
numbers. At one time seve- 
ral who hadbeen condemned 
to execution were incarcer- 
ated in a lower room, wiiere 
tlie door of the apartment 
swung in a place cut out 
The City Hall, 1806. lower than the level of the 

floor. When the sherift" came to take them out he found 
the door barricaded. He procured a heavy piece of timber 
and endeavored to batter down the door. During the 
attem.pt the voices of the prisoners were heard threatening 
d^ath to those who should persevere in the effort to molest 
them, stating that tbey had laid a train of powder to blow 
up themselves and their assailants. While a crowd 
gathered and were looking on to see the end of this sin- 
gular afiTair, some one suggested the idea of getting at thein 
through the ceiling. The prisoners renewed their threats 
of vengeance, certain, speedy and awful while this was 
being effected. The assailants persevered, nevertheless, 
and having brought the fire engine, the room was suddenly 
inundated and the train rendered harmless. How to de- 
scend was still a difiiculty, as but one could do so at a time, 
and the disproportion of physical strength that apparently 
awaited the first intruder, for some time prevented the 



Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 31 

attempt. At last a merchant, by the name of McDole, 
exclaimed, "give me aii Irishman's gun, and I will go first." 
He was provided with a formidable cudgel, and with this 
he descended, and the moment he struck the floor he 
leveled the prisoner near him, and continued to lay about 
him valiantly until the room was filled witli a strong party, 
who came to his assistance. After a hard struggle the 
culprits were secured, and the door, which had been barri- 
caded by brick taken from the fire-place, was opened. 
They were taken, seven in number, and marched up State 
street, dressed in white, and executed near Elk street upon 
the gallows. 

The last person who was marched through the streets in 
this wa}^ clothed in white, preceded by a cart bearing his 
coflin, was Hamilton, Avho shot Maj. Birdsall, in 1818. 
Strang who shot Whipple in 1827, and was the last 
murderer executed in public, was taken from the jail, 
corner of Eagle and Howard streets, a short distance to 
the gallows erected in the ravine, where High street now 
crosses Hudson street, and there executed in the presence 
of 30,000 spectators, who tilled that natural amphitheatre 
in which no house then existed. 

It was this ancient Stadhuis that the first convention 
of the provinces was held in 1764. The legislature 
held its sessions in it at a later day, until 1806, after 
which it was converted into a museum, Avhere a few 
will remember the marvels of the phantasmagoria, the 
array of wax figures, the Witch of Endor, and other at- 
tractions that for so many years excited the wonder and 
admiration of the juvenile citizen and the unsophisticated 
rustic, under the management of Harry Meech. When 
removed from this place, that depot of relics, natural and 
artificial, had a long sojourn on the ancient Johnny Robison 
corner (from 1830 to 1855), in what is still known as the 
Museum building; and it may be interesting to know that 
when the institution was broken up, its celebrities were 



N 



32 Men and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 

carted away, and Sir William "Wallace, Charlotte Temple, 
Gen. Jackson, the Goddess of Liberty, the Witch of Eudor, 
the Sleeping Beauty, the big turtle and the organ, were 
dumped promiscuously into a canal boat, whence they 
found their way to the Mississippi, and were set up anew 
in a floating museum, and for aught that is known to the 
contrary, are still voyaging up and down the father of 
waters, and thrilling thousands of admiring people with a 
pang of sweet emotion, as of old in Albany. 

[For a more particular and more extended account of some of the locali- 
ties and ancient streets, the reader is referred to the Collections on the History 
of Albany, vol. ii, pp. 9-31 ; and to the Annals of Albany, passim ; also 
to Prof. Pearson's First Settlers of Albany. \ 



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